it was a night of bright moonlight that made for pitchy shadows under wall or tree.
patsy kenny was looking for the goat, she having broken her tether. he had been driven forth by his fierce old grandfather with threats of the most awful nature if he should return without the goat.
the tears were not yet dry on patsy's small face. he had kneaded them in with his knuckles, but the smears caused by the process were not visible in the moonlight, even if there had been any one to see them. it was not only the hardship of being driven out when the meal of hot potatoes was on the table, to search for that "ould divil" of a goat, and his sense of the injustice which had put the blame of the goat's straying on to his narrow shoulders. the old, in patsy's knowledge of them, were crabbed and unjust. that was something for the young to take in the day's work. it was patsy's fears of the supernatural that kept him creeping along in the shadow of the hedge, now and again stopping to weep a little over his troubles, or to listen fearfully like a frightened hare before going on again.
why, close to the road by which he must go to seek the goat there was the tomb in which captain hercules o'hart lay buried. people about killesky did not take that road if they could help it. the tomb was a terror to all those who must pass the road by night, and to their horses if they were riding or driving. it was well known that no horse would pass by the tomb without endeavouring to avoid it, and if forced or cajoled into accomplishing the passage, would emerge trembling and sweating. some unimaginative person had suggested that the terror of the horses was due to the thunder of the invisible waterfall where the river tumbled over its weir, just below the mount on which old hercules had chosen to be buried. the horses knew better than that. nothing natural said the people would make a horse behave in such a way. the dumb beast knew what it saw and that was nothing good.
the anguish of patsy's thoughts caused him suddenly to "bawl" as he would have put it himself.
"isn't it an awful thing?" he asked, addressing the quiet bog-world under the moon, "to think of a little lad like me havin' to be out in the night facin' all them ghosts and that ould heart-scald of a man burnin' his knees at home be the fire? what'll i do at all if that tormint of a goat is up strayin' on the mount? it would be like what the divil 'ud do to climb up there, unless it was to be the churchyard below, and all them ould bones stickin' up through the clay.
"there isn't wan out this night but meself," he went on. "it's awful to think of every wan inside their houses an' me wanderin' about be me lone. it isn't wan ghost but twinty i might meet betune this an' the cross-roads, let alone fairies and pookas. won't i just welt the divil out o' the oul' goat when i ketch her?"
a little whinny close to him made him look round with a fearful hope. he saw neither pooka nor fairy, but the long horns of the animal he was in search of.
he snatched joyfully at her chain, forgetting all his anger. indeed none knew better than the goat patsy's gentleness with all living creatures. her mouth was full of grass. he remembered his grandfather's speech as he tethered the little goat on the bare hillside above the house.
"my poor girl," he had said, "you've got little enough to ate, but then you've a beautiful view."
"sure she strayed," said patsy in extenuation, "because she was hungry, the creature."
so he had not had to leave the brightly lit bog-road for that black tunnel of trees just beyond which led to old hercules' tomb, and the well where the woman fell in and the fields where old michael halloran, who had been steward and general overseer to the o'harts, was reputed to be seen night after night—hedging and fencing the lands and he years dead.
"you was a good little goat," said patsy in his great relief. "come home now and i'll milk you: and maybe that cross ould man would let me have a sup o' tay for my supper."
he had pulled the goat down the bank into the dry ditch. it was a good thing he had stopped to "bawl," else maybe he'd have missed the goat who had been having her fill of mrs. mcenroe's after-grass. still he wondered now at his temerity since the bawlin' might have brought them upon him disturbin' their sleep that way.
he suddenly caught the sound of horses' feet coming along the bog-road towards him. he stopped and listened, holding firmly on to the goat. the bog-road was light as day. two people were walking their horses side by side, a dog at their heels. "it'll be mr. terence comerford, an' sir shawn o'gara, comin' home together," patsy said to himself. "what at all would be keepin' them out till this hour of the night, unless it was to be talkin' to bridyeen sweeney? quare ways young gentlemen has that they'd be talkin' to a poor girl an' maybe turnin' her head, let alone settin' the neighbours to talkin' about her. god help her."
in this musing, be it said, patsy was but repeating the talk of his elders, although he was naturally what is called an old-fashioned child.
he crouched low in the ditch while the horses came on at a walking pace. the riders were talking, one in a low voice, so low that patsy could not make out what he said. this one was slender and young. the other, young also, but big and burly, was riding a horse which apparently did not like the walking pace. she—it was a mare—curveted and caracoled in the road, which was one reason why patsy could not hear what was being said. the boy peered out, with fear in his heart. the knowledge of horses was born in him. his father had been stud-groom to mr. comerford of inch. by and by patsy meant to escape from his old tyrant and become a stable-boy at inch or at castle talbot. perhaps in time he might come to be stud-groom, though that was a dizzy height towards which as yet his imagination hardly carried him.
"mr. terence has drink taken," said patsy, in his own mind. "he's not steady in the saddle. an', glory be to goodness, it's spitfire he's ridin'." patsy was at home in many stables where the grooms and stable-helpers condescended to accept his willing aid in running messages or the like. "what would the misthress or miss mary say if they was to see him now? look well to him, sir shawn, look well to him, or it's killin' himself he'll be!"
this apostrophe was unspoken. mr. terence comerford had brought spitfire under control and she walked more soberly. the talk had ceased for moment. it broke out again. as the riders went on their way sir shawn's voice sounded as though he was pleading hard with his friend. they had always been the most attached and devoted friends from boyhood.
terence comerford's laugh came back borne upon a little wind.
"it'll be," said patsy in his thoughts, "that sir shawn'll be biddin' mr. terence to have sinse. a quare thing it is, and he all but promised to miss mary that he'd be down at dowd's every night since she and the misthress went to dublin, talking to poor bridyeen. 'tis sorrow the crathur'll have, no less, if she goes listenin' to mr. terence. 'tis a wonder sir shawn wouldn't be givin' him better advice. unless it was to be—there's some do be sayin' he's fond of miss mary too."
all gossip of his elders, told round the turf-fire at night when patsy was supposed to be fast asleep in the settle bed, instead of "cockin' his ears" for grown people's talk.
he peered out with wide eyes in the direction the riders had taken. his small bullet head and narrow shoulders threw a shadow on the moonlit road.
"sir shawn 'ud have a right to be seein' mr. terence home to inch itself," he thought. "it isn't alone ould hercules an' the river tumblin' over the weir an' the terrible dark road, but there's ould halloran's ghost on the long avenue to inch, and there's the ghost of the minister's wife by the churchyard. and spitfire, that would take fright at a pinkeen much less a ghost, under him, and mr. terence be the way of him none too steady."
mr. terence's laughter came back on the wind, and was caught up and repeated by something that lurked in the wood of the echoes, as the people called it, which grew on a spit of solid land that reached out into the bog. those echoes were difficult to explain. why should a little wood of slender trees within a low wall catch and fling back human voices?
the echo repeating that mocking laughter, out there in the bog, was a new element of terror to patsy. he had better be getting away from this queer unlucky place before the riders were out of hearing. the little old grandfather, with his blazing eyes of wrath and the stick concealed somewhere behind his coat-tails, his most familiar aspect to patsy, was better than this solitude, with that old echo across the bog there cackling in that unchancy way. soon, very soon, the lower road, overhung with trees, pitch-black, where one had to pass by old hercules' tomb, just above the fall of the river over its weir, would swallow mr. terence, while sir shawn's way would wind upwards towards the mountains. unless indeed sir shawn was to go home to inch with mr. terence, seeing he was riding spitfire and so many perils to be passed, and him not too steady by the look of him.
patsy trotted along in the wake of the riders, his bare feet making a soft padding noise in the dust of the road. his way was sir shawn's way. the wealth of the world would not have induced patsy to go down under the black shade of the trees into the assemblage of all the ghosts.
the little goat followed with docility at his heels, uttering now and again a plaintive bleat of protest at the pace.
suddenly there came a sound which, filling patsy's heart with a concrete terror, banished all the shadowy terrors. it was the sharp slash of a whip, followed by the sound of a horse in mad flight.
"it's spitfire, it's spitfire!" cried patsy to the moon and the stars.
"she'll kill mr. terence. the world knows she'd never take the whip."
it seemed to him as though there were two horses in the headlong flight, but he could not be sure. he stumbled along, sobbing in his haste and calling out inarticulate appeals to heaven, to sir shawn, to save mr. terence, while the clatter of the horses' feet died in the distance. he even forgot his terror of the dark road which closed about him as he followed on spitfire's track. it might be that sir shawn was catching up with the runaway horse, ready to snatch at the bridle if only he could be in time.
suddenly patsy, sobbing and shaking, cannoned into some one, something, in the darkness of the trees. a man's voice cursed him low and deep,—no ghostly voice, nor that of the countryside, an unfamiliar voice and speech to patsy. his slender little body was caught in a fierce grip. he was lifted and dashed on to the road. if it had been a stony road, instead of the yielding bog, there would have been an end of patsy's story. as it was he lay very quietly, while the little goat went home without him.
